Leverage Agency Bringing Cricket All-Star Tour To Three MLB Venues Next Month

Three MLB venues will play host to an All-Star cricket tour next month. Pepsi, State Farm and MasterCard are in as sponsors of the Cricket All-Star Series, scheduled for Citi Field on Nov. 7, Minute Maid Park on Nov. 11 and Dodger Stadium on Nov. 14. The teams will be led by India's Sachin Tendulkar, widely regarded as the best cricketer ever, and Australia's Shane Warne. The series was created and is being staged by N.Y.-based Leverage Agency, alongside Tendulkar and Warne. Tickets start at $50. Pepsi will be the lead sponsor for the event at Citi Field, while MasterCard will adapt its "Priceless Surprises" campaign for the events and State Farm will back cricket clinics and other community events in the three markets. State Farm Ad Dir Ed Gold said, "We’re looking at a new and effective vehicle to reach the South Asian audience in the U.S. here, and as a first-time-in-the-U.S. event, it was pretty much of a no-brainer for us to get behind this. It's not quite the Winter Classic, but we’re hoping it could be as big."  State Farm has sponsored cricket telecasts in the U.S. on ESPN and other cable nets. Other Cricket All-Star Series sponsors include Twitter, Uber and India-based payment brand Oxigen. Leverage Founder & CEO Ben Sturner said he had been working on the tour for more than 14 months. He got the idea after promoting and staging the Yale-Harvard "Rivalry on Ice" game at MSG for the past two years. Sturner said, "The Southeast Asians that are Cricket fans represent one of the fastest-growing demos in America, so we just thought this was the right time to be airing top-level cricket to well-known U.S. venues. With these top cricket players, we wanted to go big." Overseas, there will be a number of broadcasters, including Star TV in India, that will broadcast the matches. A U.S. pay-per-view TV deal is pending.